「如是施報不離施主，未熟不受；命行不盡，不得施報。譬如樹王尼拘陀子，其子微細，種之在地則不可見，至樹生時方乃可見。施主施福亦復如是，和合熟時乃得果報。」《毘耶娑問經》卷1
Remarks:
In Buddhism, the notion of cause and effect involves the complicated interrelationship between the causes and effects of one’s countless past, present, and future lives. As most sentient beings are ignorant of their past lives, cannot see their future lives, and are confined by their limited human form, they tend to think that “seeing is believing.” Thus, sentient beings consider themselves having only one life. However, according to the law of causality, the undesirable suffering and delightful desirable events that happen in our current lives actually exhibit our karmic retribution from our past good and evil deeds. Naturally, our wholesome and unwholesome deeds in our current lives will also lead to happiness and suffering, respectively, in our future lives.
Vol. 7 of the Daśacakra Kṣitigarbha Sūtra states: “Denying the existence of cause and effect is essentially eradicating one’s own wholesome root, which is equated to heading the passage to the lower paths.” Those who do not believe in the existence of their past and future lives will further deny the original causes behind the karmic fruition of good, evil, suffering, and happiness. In fact, many worldly phenomena indicate that all beings have past lives. For instance, why do twins have different hobbies, temperaments, interests, personalities, intelligence, or even careers and incomes? Even with twins, the karmic conditions vary due to the differences in their past deeds (cause), leading to differences in their current lives (effect). This is only one example illustrating that sentient beings must have past lives.
Those who think that the law of causality does not exist do not see those who do evil and or commit adultery receiving retribution or being punished for their unwholesome acts. However, as previously mentioned, the cause and effect occur not only in one’s current life but also when the time is ripe. Most karmic retributions occur after one passes away. Even if the secular law punishes the doers of evil deeds in their current lives, they will still have to suffer the karmic retribution for their evil deeds in their future lives. For example, after serving the death sentence in this life, a vicious killer will still need to suffer the corresponding karma of killing others in hell until the retribution has been paid off, not to mention several transmigration in the lower paths of hungry ghosts and animals before being born into the human world. The killer will then die in the hands of those whom he killed in the past through an accidental event when the time is ripe. This way, the killer will fully pay off the karmic retribution of his killing in the past. The retribution will take place without fail when the cause and effect mature.
The following teaching of the Buddha is mentioned in Vol. 1 of the Piyesuowenjing Sūtra (毘耶娑問經): “The merit of almsgiving is inseparable from the almsgiver; one will benefit from one’s almsgiving when the time is ripe. One will not be rewarded during one’s current life. Tiny banyan seeds buried in the ground cannot be seen; only the banyan trees that they later grow into can be seen. The same goes for the almsgiver: the karmic fruition occurs only when the cause and effect mature.” In other words, the new trees appear only after the seeds disappear. By the same token, our karmic seeds stored in the tathagatagarbha contain our countless past wholesome and unwholesome deeds, and only after we pass away will our five-aggregate body disappear, and our newly grown five-aggregate body will bear the retribution when the cause and condition mature.
Thus, it is the permanent and eternally and
undeniably existent tathagatagarbha that allows the law of causality to exist and
that allows righteousness and justice based on our actions to be faithfully executed throughout the stream of transmigration.
#Buddha #karma #transmigration #tathagatagarbha
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